Chronicles of a Provincial Russian Startup. Marketplace.

What's 'Vezet Vsem' (VV)? VV is a freight marketplace C2C/B2C that started as an auction and smoothly evolved into an on-demand service with instant ML-based pricing. We've hauled everything, from house moves to oversized loads, across Russia, Belarus, Europe, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and beyond.

Biggest takeaway? It's all about the people – the team, investors, partners, friends. Nailed it there, 100%. Rounded up the best and coolest folks around. I'm super thankful and owe them huge props and appreciation.

Episode 1.

All started back in 2010, Rostov-on-Don, Russia's southern hub. My buddy Ara Khachikyan showed me the ropes of cashing in online, we launched a web catalogue of bathhouses and saunas. The monetization was a subscription model for owners. Yep, it's still raking it in, no joke. After that first taste of victory, I was pumped for something bigger. With a background in logistics and supply chains, I had my domain nailed down. I scoped out the American market, stumbled upon shiply.com, looked through the Russian landscape, found that this niche is? sweet and open, and thought, “Bingo, that's my gig.”

Episode 2.

2012 rolled around and it was go-time. Two of my buds, who'd later become my co-founders, Ivan Plastun and Dima Krivoruchkо, jumped on board. Had to sell my car, a sweet Hyundai Accent coupe, a throwback from my college days, to kick things up a notch. We hustled together an MVP and hit the streets, slapping ads on houses and trucks.

Our mission? Shift the mindset – freight services, bookable online with price guarantees and top-notch carriers. First clients and orders started rolling in. Tried monetizing with a subscription model for access to orders, but let's just say it was a mixed bag…

Episode 3.

2013 was a game-changer – we bagged some seed funding. Huge props to the seed investors for betting on us back then. Scored our first office, a humble basement spot on the city's edge. Brought on board a CTO, Nikita Logachev , and a Lead Dev, Anton Sivogrivov . Big shoutout to these guys – we'd be nowhere without them.

Pivoted our monetization to a transaction-based model – started skimming a fee off each order. It was a mini-revolution in our market at the time. Our unit economics began to shape up, and things started looking up.

Episode 4.

2015, and boom – we nailed a real-deal Series A from a heavyweight fund. Upgraded to a swankier office with a killer view, right in the city centre. Our team started to balloon.

Come 2016, we went big – acquisition competing service. Our crew kept expanding, growing stronger.?

Big shoutout to the team, especially our Los Capos, Nikita and Anton.

Big ups to Григорий Соловьев solo– thanks to him, we launched our first ML models in 2018 for on-the-fly pricing. This move put us leagues ahead of giants like Yandex and Sber, who were just eyeing our market. We didn't stop there – even introduced ML in our sales department. By 2019, AI was the boss of our sales force. Hello Sam Altman.

Huge thanks to Ivan Voronin , Veniamin K. and Nikita Buevich for acing the frontend and nailing the project delivery approach.

Kudos to Sergey ?? White , Дима, and Ovsep Avakian for pivoting to a microservices environment, flexing in development, and introducing a stack of cool features.

Huge shoutout to Alexander Andrienko and Serge Kazakov – these two built an insanely detailed analytics system, tracking product metrics across marketing channels. They got us all-in analytics, no need for those high-end enterprise solutions. We tracked every penny on orders, down to phone costs, and how quick carriers were on different job types. For that era, that was epic – and all from a couple of guys out of Rostov.

Big up to Sergey Blokhin, Владислав Мерный and Anastasia Shevchenko – wizards at automating just about everything.

Hats off to Aleksey Kvitko for crafting the visuals.

And a massive thank you to the others thirty folks who lent a hand and believed in the project. Anton Kondakov , Michael Morgen , Alexey Yaroshevsky Филипп, Ярик, Саша, Игорь ....

Episode 5.

Between 2017-2019, we took our business model for a spin with 42-ton trucks on regular commercial runs. Scored some solid results, even had term sheets for a Series B twice, but, bummer, those deals never sealed.

Despite getting a lot of sidetracked, we joined the biggest innovation hub in Russia during this period and made the move to Moscow. We ramped up ML, rolled out new products, and by 2020, we had steered the project into profitability.

Episode 6. Next up, not gonna lie, times got tough. We faced serious heat from market giants like Yandex and Sber, struggled to keep up with rapid market shifts, shareholder squabbles, and some off-target managerial calls. Lost our focus a bit.

But even through that storm, Vezet Vsem stayed on top in its niche – still the market leader, still turning a profit. We kept on making a difference, helping thousands of folks and companies find efficient freight solutions.

Final.

End of 2021, a major life shift – moved to Israel with my family. Next year, I launched a similar VV (Movan) in the local market, scored some early wins, though it didn't quite hit the mark with the shareholders.

The project's now in the hands of a new management team, keeping the dream alive. I've passed the baton and, looking back, I'm really proud of what we've built and learned. Thanks for being part of this ride and tuning into our story.